Iqra4 months ago

Toothpick in the liver

Forget watermelon seeds or gum. Don't ever swallow a toothpick. In a recent case, a 45-year-old woman became gradually weaker over several months before being admitted to the hospital for vomiting and low blood pressure. At first, doctors thought she had an infection, but tests showed a 1-inch-long (2.5 cm) puss-filled cavity in her liver. Surgery later showed it was a toothpick she had swallowed; it had somehow moved from her digestive track and lodged itself in her liver, according the report, published in the journal BMJ Case Reports in 2012. Doctors have published at least 17 cases of patients who swallowed a whole toothpick that migrated to the liver.